Every Friday, we’ll highlight the most important Cisco partner news and stories of the week, as well as point you to important Cisco-related content you may have missed along the way. Let’s have it.

Off The Top

Sherri Liebo has been named Vice President, Global Partner Marketing, overseeing Cisco’s Strategic Partner Marketing, Channel Programs, Services Partner Marketing and Strategic Partner Communications teams. Bruce Klein, senior vice president, Worldwide Partner Organization, talked about Sherri’s appointment here on the Channels blog and why this is such an important role at Cisco. Channelnomics, CRN and Channel Partners were among the first press to cover it on Friday.

CCNA Redesigned

As you may have seen, Cisco redesigned the CCNA Routing and Switching certification with new training and curricula. It’s part of an overall effort to better align Cisco’s certifications to the demands of an IT industry undergoing paradigm shifts like the Internet of Everything phenomenon we’ve been talking about for a while now. It’s also a way to better train engineers for the types of dedicated, segment-specific jobs that are going to be in high demand over the next few years.

This is the latest in a series of posts featuring partner success stories where partners share how they’re helping customers achieve their goals by using Cisco technology. This week we’re pleased to feature Chris Gabriel, Vice President of Solutions Management, Logicalis Group.

Say you are the CMO of a retailer who has just surveyed your customers and found that providing an iPad-enabled queue jumping option in your stores would make them three times more likely to choose you over a competitor. Wow! A Eureka moment if ever there was one.

Now say you are the COO of a major manufacturer who has just realized that your business is producing a mountain of data that if used in real time could reduce your cost base by 2% and improve your margins and competitive edge. Pow! The value of big data hits you right between the eyes.

These moments of insight are now happening more and more at a faster pace. New technologies transform the way we think about our world; just think how many new business apps are available on your iPad, and it’s only three years old. There’s a lesson in this speed, and it’s that looking smart in the IT world isn’t about how much technical jargon you know, but rather how quickly you can enable your customer to meet its business priorities.

Here at Cisco, we believe that Smart Solutions are game changers: a way to start new conversations with your customers and expand your sales. Now is the time to make sure you understand the Smart Solutions conversation so we can build new business opportunities together.

What is a Smart Solution?
The Smart Solutions concept is designedwith two goals in mind: first, how do Cisco and our partners make it easier for our customers to achieve their business objectives by leveraging the full breadth of the Cisco portfolio? Second, how will we scale these solutions, especially through a Partner Led approach, where sales and full life cycle support is provided exclusively through partners?

The simple answer is that a Cisco Smart Solution integrates, pre-tests, and validates Cisco products for how they work together. In some cases, these Smart Solutions include third party technology which is also tested as a part of the whole offer. The idea is to include intellectual assets such as design guides, implementation guides, andcustomer use cases that partners can use to build a practice and accelerate pilot to profit. Cisco includes a full suite of pre-sales tools such as sales enablement and demand generation programs. Soon we will offer customer intelligence, including market insights and information on buying behaviors to help partners prospect and qualify customers.

The Cisco Aironet 3600 features the Highest 802.11n performance with Cisco CleanAir™ technology and is the industry’s first 4 x 4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) access point with three spatial streams. It has add-on options for 802.11ac or Wireless Security and Spectrum Intelligence (WSSI) Module and standard 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) .

All right. Who is still awake? Show of hands?

One of the challenging things about working for a technology company is avoiding getting lost in the details. There’s a time and place for technical specifications, to be sure. But I believe that most people really want to know “How will all this technology make my life better?”.

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index Forecast projects 18-fold growth in global mobile internet data traffic from 2011 to 2016 – and predicts that mobile cloud traffic will account for 71% of total mobile data traffic by 2016. In a world where mobility is on the rise, enterprises are facing a rapidly evolving landscape, where more and more personal devices are coming into the workplace. Cisco’s Unified Workspace lets enterprises securely adapt to the increasing presence of personal devices, by offering a set of three Smart Solutions that integrate multiple personal devices securely and seamlessly to increase productivity and enhance collaboration.

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